Warrior's Refuge Ch. 02

Jack invited his friends inside for lunch. While they were eating sandwiches and chips, washed down with Colorado Cool-Ade (Coors Beer) Jack discussed his thoughts about a place for the two men to live. He said, "I hate to see all the empty houses here in town. I know there are several for sale and some for rent. You could buy a house and if it needed it we could fix it up for you to live in. These are almost all older houses so shouldn't cost much as houses go. You could probably rent a decent place for about half your GI bill payment per month. Certainly no more than two thirds of it. Of course that wouldn't be a fancy place or too large."

Rat said, "Naw, I don't want to own no place. I seen Maw and Pa all the time trying to fix this or that and it got darn expensive. One of my buds back home lived with his folks in a rented house. Something broke they just called the owner and he had to fix it. That's for me. Besides, there's no way I can afford a down payment on a place, much less the upkeep, insurance, taxes and so forth even if I could make the payments."

"Well how about this. We'll look over the houses here in town for sale and if you find one you like that isn't too expensive I'll buy it and charge each you half your GI Bill education checks each month for rent. You'll have to work for me 20 hours a week to make up the rest of the rent. We'll fix up your house first then you'll do whatever else I need for you to do. After you finish your schooling you can keep renting from me if you stay around here and we'll renegotiate the rent or you can buy the house from me."

"Heck, that don't sound bad. We'll go check out that school tomorrow and then if I decide to go we'll talk about the house some more. Now, what do ya do for fun and excitement around hereabouts?"

"Not much unless you like to fish, swim or hunt in season unless you drive thirty minutes or so to town. There are a couple Honky Tonks closer that mostly only serve beer. Weekends you can dance with the bar flies and usually pick up some pussy if your need it. I mostly just hang with some of the guys I went to school with or work on my places here in town. Sometime we go down to the river and party with their old ladies."

"Well I guess that's better than getting shot at by Charlie. That's about all we could do back home too. Change your duds if you need to and let's find one of those Honky Tonks for now."

The next couple days were spent first walking through the small town looking over the obviously empty houses, then trying to find out who owned them and if they would sell. By Friday the three friends had a list of 13 houses that could be purchased and, to their surprise, three business buildings and the old hospital. The old hospital was structurally sound and had been used as a hangout by the local kids for several years after it closed. The men found an unlocked door and wandered through it one morning. The kitchen still contained the old ranges, sinks and other equipment. Many of the rooms were still filled with the chairs, beds and other equipment. Some of the medical supplies were in the stockrooms. The hospital had a clinic with doctors offices on the ground floor along main street with a common waiting room. The cafeteria, laboratory, two operating rooms, and pharmacy were to the rear on the ground floor.

After their tour of the hospital Jack and the guys were sitting in his yard under the "beer drinking tree" sucking down the suds. He said, "I think most of the houses we looked at can be redone pretty easily if you don't want fancy. A couple of them aren't fit to renovate but I would guess ten can be and of those ten six wouldn't take much money to make them real comfortable. Heck, even the old hospital can be redone into apartments and other useful space. Did you see anything you were interested in?"

Puss looked over at Rat then turned to Jack and said, "Well Gimp, I saw a couple I liked ok but I'm still not sure this is the thing for me."

Rat said, "Oh come on Puss. What the hell else you got going on? It's nice here and no one's fucking with us. We can go to this trade school and get our school check and live easy for a while. The Army owes us that much after 'Nam. Let's do it for now and if we decide its not for us we haven't lost anything. Besides, it should be easy if we take the schooling in what we did in the Army."

The rest of the summer the three friends worked fixing up two houses Jack bought and working on the old drug store and Jack's house. In early August Jim came to see Jack and he brought the Attorney that handled the estate. After the greetings Jim said, "Jack there was more to your inheritance than we told you when you got the deeds to the store and house here in town. Your grandfather left specific instructions that the remainder of your inheritance would not be given to you unless and until certain actions were taken by you. He further required we not tell you about the secret instructions because he wanted you to make the decisions about your future with no outside influence.

"This summer you have proven his faith in you was not misplaced. We are here to give you the remainder of your inheritance because you have met the final requirements to receive it. You were not to be given the balance unless you decided to repair his house and live here in town. You were also to be given a separate amount if you elected to return to college and you will receive another, final payment if you obtain a degree."

The attorney opened his briefcase and handed Jack a check for $250,000.00. He said, "This is the amount set aside for you to use in renovating buildings here in town if you decided to remain and inhabit your grandfather's home. In addition, Mr. Fielding owned the old hospital and all the buildings on that side of main street. They are now yours as well as the house and Sundries store."

"What! What am I supposed to do with them? Wait, I thought the hospital was for sale? I found a listing for it at the real estate office when I was looking for a house to buy and rent to my friends."

"Yes, it was for sale but only if it was reopened as a medical treatment facility. At the minimum that meant a doctor's office, but preferably a small outpatient clinic or hospital for minor illnesses and injury. You can still leave it listed to sell if you want, or you can do anything else with it you wish."

"Oh. Well crap. I don't know what to do. Do you have any other surprises for me or is this it?"

Jim laughed and said, "No Jack. This is it now, I promise." He reached out and handed Jack a large key ring filled with keys and continued speaking, "Here are the keys to the hospital and the remaining buildings. They are each labeled for the building and door they fit. We'll be going now. Have fun deciding what to do with all this real estate."

After the men left Jack sat on his porch drinking his beer staring out over his yard. Rat and Puss came out with their beer and sat with him. Rat said, "You look like you got kicked in the nuts Gimp. You got problems?"

"Yeah, no. Crap, I don't know. I just found out Gramps left me more old falling down buildings and I have no idea what in the hell to do with them. shit, this town's dead. What the hell am I going to do with a hospital, garage and a couple of old store buildings in addition to the Sundry store?"

"Heck, I don't know but why worry about it now? We have school and other work to do. Come on, let's have some beer."

Time and school went on. Jack was not one of those people that could just lay around though so during breaks and evenings when his school work was caught up he worked on his buildings. After all, he had the money and he hated to see buildings fall into disrepair and fall down. All he did at first was replace broken windows and rotten wood, then he decided to paint the exterior.

One Friday just before summer break Puss brought a skinny redheaded girl home with him. He saw Jack on main street so stopped and introduced him to Gina. "Hey Jack, this is Gina, a friend from school. Gina, this is Jack but we call him Gimp 'cause he got hurt some and gimped around a lot. When he gets tired he still Gimps some."

Gina smiled and held her hand out to shake as she said, "Good to meet ya Gimp. Ron and Rat talk about you a lot at school."

Puss said, "Gina's in the mechanic school with me and RAT. Well, not really with me. She's studying small engine repair and I work on the cars ya know. Anyway, we see each other a lot and, well, I guess you could say we're a couple now. She's gonna spend the weekend here with us. We still fishing tomorrow?"

"Planned on it. I already have my stuff the truck. Want me to pick you up or we meeting somewhere?"

"Come by the house when you're ready. You can bring Rat can't ya? Gina'll ride with me and we'll follow you."

The rest of the summer Gina became a fixture in Sweetwater. By now, all three of the young men had met ladies and they were in town with them many weekends. Jack couldn't seem to settle on just one and, at present, he was without. Rat seemed to be happy dating a young woman that had been a Corpsman in the Navy. She was in the nursing program at the Vocational school.

About a month before the Vocational School graduation, Rat, Puss and Gina came to see Jack. After a couple beers Puss looked at Gina and raised his eyebrows. She nodded yes and he turned back to Jack. He said, "Jack. Gina and I are going to get married and we want to open a garage together with Rat. She wants to work on small engines and I want to work on the cars and trucks. Would you rent us your old garage building downtown?"

"Well yeah, I guess I would. I'm not using it for anything right now. I'm not sure how much business you could get in this little berg though. You sure you want to set up here?"

The young couple looked at each other then they both said, "Yes."

Puss continued, "We both grew up in a little town and we like it here. We figure there's a lot of work hereabouts if we're good. People have to get their engines fixed somewhere. All we have to do is get them to come to us. We know we do good work and if they come once they'll come back if they need us. We think we can charge less than in town and get all the business we want. After we get some business we can raise our rates to closer to what the big city mechanics charge and do even better.

"We thought we could keep renting the house and maybe take some of the garage rent out in work too at least until we get started."

"Ok. I don't have a problem with that. Same rent for the house and the garage? Half what your education check would be and 20 hours a week work for me?"

"Well, I don't know about that. If we give you 20 hours a week plus a full check every month we will only be working about 40 hours a week for ourselves. We might not be able to make it on that. How about we pay you fair value cash rent for the house and garage then if you have work for us to do we can schedule it in with whatever else we have and take the charge off the cash rent we would pay you?"

"I can live with that. That would make the cash rent for the house about $230 a month. Why don't we say the garage is worth the same? It still has the lift, work benches, creepers and grease pit in it so you will be able to use them too."

"Deal. Write it up and we'll do it. Uh, can we maybe do some work instead of pay cash until we get some business?"

Jack laughed and said, "Yeah, sure. We can work something out."

By the time they had been open two months Ron, Rat and Gina were as busy as they wanted to be. They were able to buy new things they needed and still pay Jack his cash rent. Each of the friends met and made friends with several people while in school. Not surprisingly, many of them were veterans and some of them were interested in the little town of Sweetwater, especially when they found out how quiet it was and that there were several veterans around.

By the end of the summer the little town had veteran owned businesses all up and down the old main street. Jack rented the old sundries store to a friend of Rat's fiancee for a small quick pick store. She was another veteran and had been a quartermaster in the army. She opened the soda fountain again and made soups and sandwiches for the lunch trade as well as sold snacks, over the counter drugs and other frequently purchased items. As time passed she added to her inventory based on customer's requests. She even branched out and stocked some hardwire items for the local farmers.

Another one of the lady friends of one of the veterans was a hair dresser and opened the beauty shop again. She had a small but growing business doing hair for the local ladies and even cutting some of the men's hair.

One of the retired veterans that moved to town began a small freight business. He called it the Express Delivery Company and he did just that. He made the rounds between two local large towns and bought items local people ordered then delivered them to their homes or businesses. He would even just pick up and deliver items if they had purchased them already. Some days he had to make two trips to the larger town because he had a larger load than he could deliver with one trip. He would even buy and deliver groceries for locals who didn't have a vehicle or way to get to town easily. Occasionally his wife would act as a taxi driver and take elderly or disabled people to their medical, dental or optometrist appointments.

Jack still had two years to go on his education and maybe three. When the word got out about Jack and his deals on housing for veterans, he had more work than he could handle keeping up with his growing property inventory and his school work. Of course much of the work was done by his renters working off some of their monthly rent but he still had to manage the buildings and do his bookwork, buy materials needed and supervise renovation and repairs. He ended up hiring two veterans to help him. One was working on a degree in accounting, the other was a licensed Realtor/Broker, so he hired a bookkeeper and property manager to take the load off.

Several of his new friends did not want to rent a whole house and he reopened the old hospital, turning some of the rooms into small apartments by combining two or three rooms into one larger apartment. One of the female veterans he met through a male friend wanted to live in the hospital and suggested he allow her to reopen the old kitchen and serve meals. She wasn't going to school but still hung around the vets and wanted something to supplement her service connected disability check.

Jack didn't care so added her to his renters for the cafeteria and a hospital apartment. They were renovating the kitchen when he hurt his back moving some of the equipment. Some of his friends talked him into going to a chiropractor for some treatment. To his surprise, the treatment seemed to help. The chiropractor mentioned he had a large number of patients from the Sweetwater area during one of Jack's treatments.

During his last treatment the chiropractor told Jack he lost his lease on his office and had to find a new office or move. Almost without thinking Jack said, "I'm sorry you lost your lease but that might be a good thing for both of us. I own the old hospital in Sweetwater and am renovating it and many of the houses in town. I'm turning most of the rooms in the hospital into apartments. I have a female veteran opening the cafeteria to sell meals. I don't have anyone interested in the old doctor's offices and examination rooms. There's already a waiting room with receptionist desk there. Would you be interested in moving your practice down there? I remember you said a lot of your patients came from that area and I can make you a great deal on the rent."

"I don't know. I'd have to come look at the facility. As I recall that's an old building. How reasonable can you be on the rent? I'm paying $1,000 a month here."

"I'm sure I could at least meet that price, depending on how much space you need of course. I see you have four treatment rooms here plus your reception area. I think there are eight exam rooms in the clinic part of the hospital. I could rent you four of them and give you access to the reception and waiting area for that amount for sure. We'd have to work something out on the electricity, heating, cooling, water and sewer though as they're all routed through the hospital and I really, really don't want to redo any of the utilities if I don't have to. I've had the wiring inspected and it meets current codes still because the previous owner upgraded it before the hospital closed."

The end result of that conversation was the little town gained a chiropractor. Since the town was only six miles from the larger town his previous office was in he lost very few of his old patients. Jack even renovated one of the houses owned by a doctor and rented it to the chiropractor.

The year he finished college Jack received a phone call from an old doctor who wanted to cut back to part time work. He was from the town and knew the chiropractor. He asked if the other examination rooms were still open and if Jack would be interested in renting them to him for the same amount he rented the other four to the chiropractor.

Jack didn't even think about the deal. He immediately said yes and they began working out the rest of the deal. The Medical Doctor and the chiropractor decided to share office help to reduce their expenses since they would share the waiting room anyway. The MD only planned to work three days a week on Tuesday through Thursday. His wife was a Nurse and planned to quit her job and begin working with him as his office nurse. They planned to give free space to the county Ambulance District in exchange for them basing an ambulance and EMT station in the old hospital.